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Mutated strains of HIV in Saskatchewan causing illness quicker: study

published on July 26, 2018 by Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press , in CTV News

AMSTERDAM - Mutated strains of HIV circulating in Saskatchewan are leading to faster-developing AIDS-related illnesses in the Indigenous population, new research has shown.

The research from the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and Simon Fraser University was presented at the 2018 AIDS Conference in Amsterdam on Thursday. It showed that the strains of HIV in Saskatchewan have high levels of immune-resistant mutations compared to ones in other areas of Canada and the United States.

"Physicians were saying there's something going on here that isn't right, people are getting sick very, very fast," said Zabrina Brumme, the lead author of the study and associate professor of health sciences at Simon Fraser University.

"It's almost as if the virus is nastier."

Saskatchewan's HIV incidence rates are among the highest in North America, with 2016 rates in some areas more than ten times the national average. Nearly 80 per cent of people with HIV in the province are Indigenous.

The researchers hypothesized that the quickly developing illnesses were linked with resistant strains that had adapted to the specific immune profile of Indigenous people.

"In Saskatchewan, like other places in the world, HIV is adapting to the host populations in which it is circulating," Brumme said.

"In Saskatchewan, the majority of HIV-affected persons are of Indigenous ancestry so HIV as a result has adapted to these populations."

The multi-year analysis compared more than 2,300 HIV sequences from Saskatchewan with sets from elsewhere in Canada and the United States.